Heroin: This is What an Epidemic Looks Like
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Facing Addiction
1,000+ Posts
I changed my user name for this thread. I don’t post often, but there are some on here that know who I am.
I read the article and it’s very familiar. My son is a heroin addict. It started with a little weed in high school, went to pain killers and when that was no longer enough, he started using heroin. This went on for over 6 years.
My wife and I knew he was on something, he swore it was just a little pot. By the time he hit rock bottom and admitted he was a heroin addict, he was a daily user. At his worst he was spending over $300 a day on heroin.
He described his life as waking up, going into the bathroom and throwing up this black pungent bile. Then a long shower, sometimes half a day sitting in the shower not even feeling the hot water had run out. Just sitting. Then he was off to find the money he was going to need to get his daily fix.
He had long run out of friends and family that would trust him. He had burned every bridge around him. He had stolen, lied and manipulated everyone to get cash, or something he could sell.
We knew he was going to end up either dead or in prison. After he finally admitted that he was an addict we were able to get him into a rehab facility. He spent the first two weeks in detox. After a month he was released and went to live in a sober living home. 14 guys in a home, all there trying to support each other in staying clean and sober. In just the first few months he lost 8 friends to either overdose or suicide.
He’s now 3 years clean and sober. He can’t promise me he’ll never use again. He did that thousands of times when he was using. But what he can promise me is that he won’t use today.
Addiction doesn’t just happen in poor neighborhoods and big cities. Don’t be fooled because the original article documented a week in Cincinnati. Addiction is happening everywhere. My son was a scholarship athlete at Texas. Was even a starter for a time. You would be surprised by some the names of the athletes AND staff that have struggled with addiction. Some even made it to the pros.
I’m glad that addiction is now starting to get some media and political attention. When you start to look at the numbers, it’s staggering. Over 20 million active addicts in the US, another 20 million in recovery. Deaths due to alcohol and drug use are the third leading cause of death, and the first leading cause of preventable deaths.
It really is time for this conversation.
I read the article and it’s very familiar. My son is a heroin addict. It started with a little weed in high school, went to pain killers and when that was no longer enough, he started using heroin. This went on for over 6 years.
My wife and I knew he was on something, he swore it was just a little pot. By the time he hit rock bottom and admitted he was a heroin addict, he was a daily user. At his worst he was spending over $300 a day on heroin.
He described his life as waking up, going into the bathroom and throwing up this black pungent bile. Then a long shower, sometimes half a day sitting in the shower not even feeling the hot water had run out. Just sitting. Then he was off to find the money he was going to need to get his daily fix.
He had long run out of friends and family that would trust him. He had burned every bridge around him. He had stolen, lied and manipulated everyone to get cash, or something he could sell.
We knew he was going to end up either dead or in prison. After he finally admitted that he was an addict we were able to get him into a rehab facility. He spent the first two weeks in detox. After a month he was released and went to live in a sober living home. 14 guys in a home, all there trying to support each other in staying clean and sober. In just the first few months he lost 8 friends to either overdose or suicide.
He’s now 3 years clean and sober. He can’t promise me he’ll never use again. He did that thousands of times when he was using. But what he can promise me is that he won’t use today.
Addiction doesn’t just happen in poor neighborhoods and big cities. Don’t be fooled because the original article documented a week in Cincinnati. Addiction is happening everywhere. My son was a scholarship athlete at Texas. Was even a starter for a time. You would be surprised by some the names of the athletes AND staff that have struggled with addiction. Some even made it to the pros.
I’m glad that addiction is now starting to get some media and political attention. When you start to look at the numbers, it’s staggering. Over 20 million active addicts in the US, another 20 million in recovery. Deaths due to alcohol and drug use are the third leading cause of death, and the first leading cause of preventable deaths.
It really is time for this conversation.
@Facing Addiction thanks for sharing your story, I'm sure that was not easy to do and I hope your son has many clean and happy years ahead of him
Facing Addiction
1,000+ Posts
https://caitlinharrisonblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/to-inhale/
To inhale.
To live under the inexplicably heavy cloak of addiction is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. While I’ve never experienced it first hand and won’t pretend that I ever have, I’ve fought along side of someone who has for many years. It is obvious that it is a battle, day in and day out. Every morning, every moment, is a fight as to whether or not you will supply your body with the very thing it has become dependent on to survive.
For you, heroin was air.
We don’t think twice about breathing. Our brains have deemed it necessary because it satisfies a need. Immediately following our entrance into this world our tiny bodies searched for an element we didn’t yet know existed. We stumbled upon our first breath of oxygen in an attempt to let out a scream, and noticed an instant, overwhelming attraction to this feeling of being oxygenated. Our brains were rewired in the blink of an eye and from this moment forward, we knew what we had to do to survive. If we had tried to fight the next breath that followed, our bodies would immediately recognize the agony we would experience as every cell in our body would be deprived of a substance it quickly became dependent on, and we would succumb to this natural instinct— to inhale.
Just like that, in attempt to let out a scream and calm the multitudes of anxieties within your soul, you stumbled upon heroin. Not knowing that genetics weren’t in your favor, you happened to find an attraction to this substance a little more so than the next guy. Within moments, just like when you took your first breath, dopamine flooded your body signaling to your brain that this stuff- this stuff was good. It satisfied a need. From then on, every moment of every day, your body knew what it needed in order to avoid the possible agony that would again, just like with air, follow without it. So, you inhaled. Over and over again.
The point is no longer whether or not the decision you made to quiet a scream was right or wrong. It happened, you’re human. There’s no going back, no undoing it. All that mattered now, was when you would take your next breath.
Looking back, the irony of the situation is painful. Unknowingly, the last decision you made wasn’t to feed your body’s desire for oxygen, but for heroin. Overtime, the two had become synonymous, making it difficult to decipher which was more necessary in the moments of your body’s intense hunger. As it pulsed through your veins, your breaths became shallow, and you stopped yearning for the very air that was truly vital for your survival. This time, the high was so great that it reminded you of your very first breath, only to rob you of your next.
The stigma associated with addiction is one of failure. Of a lack of will power. Of a bad decision. I don’t know about you, but after my first breath, I inhaled again, too. The only difference between my warrior of a brother and I is that I never desired to look beyond air to quiet a scream. I’ve never even needed to scream to his extent- I wasn’t buried alive in a grave of anxieties grasping for air at every chance I had- and I most certainly won’t pretend that in search for a moment of peace, I wouldn’t have inhaled, too.
In loving memory of William Jared Harrison 10/11/1987 – 06/23/2017
To inhale.
To live under the inexplicably heavy cloak of addiction is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. While I’ve never experienced it first hand and won’t pretend that I ever have, I’ve fought along side of someone who has for many years. It is obvious that it is a battle, day in and day out. Every morning, every moment, is a fight as to whether or not you will supply your body with the very thing it has become dependent on to survive.
For you, heroin was air.
We don’t think twice about breathing. Our brains have deemed it necessary because it satisfies a need. Immediately following our entrance into this world our tiny bodies searched for an element we didn’t yet know existed. We stumbled upon our first breath of oxygen in an attempt to let out a scream, and noticed an instant, overwhelming attraction to this feeling of being oxygenated. Our brains were rewired in the blink of an eye and from this moment forward, we knew what we had to do to survive. If we had tried to fight the next breath that followed, our bodies would immediately recognize the agony we would experience as every cell in our body would be deprived of a substance it quickly became dependent on, and we would succumb to this natural instinct— to inhale.
Just like that, in attempt to let out a scream and calm the multitudes of anxieties within your soul, you stumbled upon heroin. Not knowing that genetics weren’t in your favor, you happened to find an attraction to this substance a little more so than the next guy. Within moments, just like when you took your first breath, dopamine flooded your body signaling to your brain that this stuff- this stuff was good. It satisfied a need. From then on, every moment of every day, your body knew what it needed in order to avoid the possible agony that would again, just like with air, follow without it. So, you inhaled. Over and over again.
The point is no longer whether or not the decision you made to quiet a scream was right or wrong. It happened, you’re human. There’s no going back, no undoing it. All that mattered now, was when you would take your next breath.
Looking back, the irony of the situation is painful. Unknowingly, the last decision you made wasn’t to feed your body’s desire for oxygen, but for heroin. Overtime, the two had become synonymous, making it difficult to decipher which was more necessary in the moments of your body’s intense hunger. As it pulsed through your veins, your breaths became shallow, and you stopped yearning for the very air that was truly vital for your survival. This time, the high was so great that it reminded you of your very first breath, only to rob you of your next.
The stigma associated with addiction is one of failure. Of a lack of will power. Of a bad decision. I don’t know about you, but after my first breath, I inhaled again, too. The only difference between my warrior of a brother and I is that I never desired to look beyond air to quiet a scream. I’ve never even needed to scream to his extent- I wasn’t buried alive in a grave of anxieties grasping for air at every chance I had- and I most certainly won’t pretend that in search for a moment of peace, I wouldn’t have inhaled, too.
In loving memory of William Jared Harrison 10/11/1987 – 06/23/2017
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